FAILED childcare tycoon Eddy Groves will fight an attempt by the companies watchdog to seize his passport and freeze his assets.
A defiant Mr Groves - who built ABC Learning Centres into the world`s biggest childcare chain before it collapsed into receivership under $1.6 billion in debts - has told his lawyers he wants to front the Federal Court in Sydney on Tuesday to put his case, The Australian reports.
The Australian Securities & Investments Commission yesterday filed an application in the Federal Court to prevent Mr Groves from leaving the country by confiscating his passport.
ASIC is also seeking to freeze some of the assets of his new wife, Viryan Collins-Rubie, who was left in tears after lawyers informed her of ASIC`s intervention yesterday, and of his former brother-in-law Frank Zullo.
ASIC wants the court to ban the couple from selling or giving away any of their assets, or spiriting them overseas.
But it proposes to let Mr Groves and Ms Collins-Rubie draw a $10,000-a-week allowance to cover "ordinary living expenses" for themselves and Mr Groves`s two teenage children.
Mr Groves would not comment on the case last night, but the Gold Coast businessman told friends yesterday that he found ASIC`s action "unbelievable".
"He doesn`t think he has anything to defend," one of his associates told
The Australian on condition of anonymity. "This is just one more challenge he`ll face, and he`ll fight, strenuously."
Mr Groves had just disembarked in Brisbane from a flight from Adelaide when his lawyers phoned to tell him of ASIC`s application yesterday.
Ms Collins-Rubie - the long-time lover Mr Groves married just weeks after divorcing his teenage sweetheart, Le Neve Groves, in December - was devastated by the news.
"What`s his wife got to do with it?" the associate said.
"Her only crime is she married him five months ago."
Read more on this story at The Australian.
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